‘A Scandalous Message’: St. Mary’s College Faces New Backlash Over Controversial Commencement Speaker

[Michie]

Mary McAleese, the former president of Ireland, advocates for the expansion of abortion access and the attempted ordination of women.

An all-women’s Catholic college that was recently the center of controversy for attempting to admit male students who identify as female is facing a fresh round of concern over its commitment to Catholic teaching.

This time, St. Mary’s College in northern Indiana is being criticized by alumnae and current students for its plan to give a platform to a former Irish politician who is now devoted to overturning Church teaching as this spring’s commencement speaker.

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‘A Scandalous Message’: St. Mary’s College Faces New Backlash Over Controversial Commencement Speaker

Mary McAleese, the former president of Ireland, advocates for the expansion of abortion access and the attempted ordination of women.

www.ncregister.com

 

[RileyG]

Awful. What were the Sisters of the Holy Cross thinking?

May God have mercy upon this woman!

 

[Michie]

Former Irish President Mary McAleese once expressed her regretover sending her son to a Catholic school because of the Church’s teaching on homosexuality. In 1981 she publicly described the “failure to provide abortion as a human rights issue.” In 2018, she voted to repeal Ireland’s eighth amendment. Now, in May, she will be receiving an honorary degree and delivering the commencement address at Saint Mary’s College, the University of Notre Dame’s all-female sister school.​

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Many Irish readers are familiar with McAleese’s views, but Americans may not be; despite a doctorate in Canon Law from the Pontifical Gregorian University, she supports abortion access, gay marriage, and the ordination of women to the Catholic priesthood. We ponder whether the President of Saint Mary’s College chose McAleese precisely for this reason.​

At a 2024 talk at Notre Dame, she claimed her parish priest reprimanded her mother for undergoing a hysterectomy, saying: “that was the Catholic Church then in Ireland.” During the 2018 abortion referendum, she said she had “no hesitation” voting in favorof repealing the eighth amendment, which had granted the equal right to life of the pregnant woman and the unborn child. After Irish Bishop Kevin Doran asked those who voted in favor of repealing the eighth amendment to seek the sacrament of reconciliation, she said she had no intention of doing so, and that “these are man-made rules…not statements of an infallible Church.” Similarly, McAleese has attacked the now-ailing Pope Francis for his opposition to female ordination, saying his statements on the matter contain a “ludicrous lack of logic.” ​

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St. Mary’s College in South Bend Should Not Confer An Honorary Degree On Mary McAleese...

 

[Michie]

‘A Scandalous Message’: St. Mary’s College Faces New Backlash Over Controversial Commencement Speaker...

 

[RileyG]

Sounds like she follows the world’s way instead of Christ! How very sad!